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Bird Courts / Crow Courts (AKA Bird Parliaments)

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Anonymous

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crow courts

A couple of days ago I saw a crow court.

A large number of birds were on the ground in a circle with one in the centre that they were pecking at. When a car drove past the birds flew into the trees but formed another circle on the ground a short distance away after the car had gone.

It was quite an odd thing. The birds were big black things and making odd noises. I hadn't really believed that crow courts existed - anyone else seen one?
 
Are we referring to the crow courts-- the small park outside the crows' flats?
Or the crows gathering to mate?
 
Ignore the silliness, Zoe - it seems to be one of those days ;)

I've heard of crow courts as you decribe but haven't seen a full-blown one myself. I have seen two crows apparently bullying a smaller bird (either a young crow or a blackbird - I was too far away to be sure).

Jane.
 
Yeah I saw one a couple of years ago whilst out walking my dog. It was on some playing fields behind Port Vale football club, an area now known as Sproson Park.

There was one bird on the ground and lots of other birds, all different species, swooping down and attacking it, on the ground pecking it and up in the trees sort of 'observing'. I walked within about 10m of them with my big lolloping alsation but the birds just ignored us.
 
I've seen a similar thing happening with seagulls (they were herring gulls in this instence) when feeding these birds bits of pasty 2 of the larger birds set upon a smaller (either younger or female) Gull untill he droped a bit of pasty and sulked off to a few metres away to wait his turn to feed.
These ganging ups are thought to occour because some species of bird have a pecking order (it's not a pun it's where the word origionaly came from) on when they should feed and do other things.
 
Crow picks on bunny shocker

When out jogging once I saw a rabbit sitting motionless, with a crow just standing a few inches away, looking at it. I ran slowly past only a few feet away and neither the crow or the rabbit cared.

I don't know whether I'm reading too much into it, but the rabbit looked s*it scared of the crow (much more than the panting, sweating human).
 
Its possible the rabbit was sick with myxy and the crow was planning on pecking its eyes out .
 
crows

never seen a circle crows /but a bunch in a field often (I let my collie loose to clear them ,he likes that-but I do know crows are smart ..they remember me..and will sqwaahk! at me and rowdy when we come by days later...
 
crows

a group of crowws are known as a murder of crows
 
Mario Fiorillo, Cardiff, Wales, UK

Two years ago while working temporarily for the City Council as a litter picker, I happened on the Gabalfa playground, North Cardiff.

It was around 3pm I was picking away at the rubbish that people leaves behind, suddenly a great cloud of birds came to land some 20 meters from me; they assumed a circular shape with an empty cirle in the middle; they were of all sorts, ravens crows, magpies, blackbirds, pigeons, sparrows, I estimated some 150 - 200 birds.

I watched the birds; in the clearance, two ravens where keeping a crow still, and where hitting it with beaks and claws; once in a while other birds joined in, jumped in the circle and hit the crow, which tried more than once to escape but was brought down by the ravens.


This lasted a good twenty minutes, then as suddenly as they landed, they all went...

My colleague could hardly believe what he had just witnessed: a bird courts in action; I just woner what had the crow done to deserve such a punishment.
 
Yep I posted that one. It didn't generate a lot of interest though.

The birds I saw were all the same type (smooth-billed Ani) which are black and related to cuckoos.

I would really like to know what causes birds to behave like this, it was very strange to see it.

The birds were also making an odd sound which almost sounded like people talking. Although I see these type of birds in my garden all the time I haven't heard them making that type of noise again.
 
I have seen two of these courts over the last few years.

Both from my bedroom window and on exactly the same spot on the playing fields i overlook.

The first was definatly crows, about twenty-five or so. they where making a hell of a noise and taking it in turns to attack a couple of others in the centre of the ring. This went on for twenty mins from when i noticed it.

The second time was mixed species, and seemed to be a lot more birds in the court with loads more watching from adjactent trees. the bird being attacked was bigger than the majority of the court birds who where attacking in multiples then backing off. the birds watching seemed to be egging the others on. no pun intended....
Couldn't tell you the species of the bird being attacked as i am not up on twitching. looked smaller than a crow and more gangley, black or dark brown.
 
Airfowlness...parliament of crows'

"...Airfowlness, on Scotland's western coast where what seem to be courts or parliaments of sea birds are held annually..."
Airfowlness is from The Water Babies. Airfowlness is the location where thousands of hooded crows hold their yearly parliament, to boast of what they had done the previous year and to bring one of their own to trial. '
 
Ian's experience added.

A facinating subject, but sadly not one I'm qualified to comment upon.

Jane.
 
Bird-related, but not a court - rather a heartwarming seasonal tale.

My flatmate's mum called him a few days ago to say that she'd thrown some bread on the lawn as usual, and a mouse had gone for one of the bits. Then a robin came down for the same chunk of bread, and they fought over it, but eventually they decided to share it together! :likee:
 
And there is also the theory of "bird parliaments" mentioned in Karl Shukers the Hidden Powers of Animals. Where a lot of birds will land and sit in a group, with one individual in the center. They then seem to communicate a lot, and then go silent and go kill the bird in the middle. Judge, jury and executioner.
 
I have actually seen something like this, sans the 'victim'. When I used to walk home from school I used to pass through a small public woodland that took around 15-20 minutes to cross, there were a lot of crows in the general area but one day I saw a 'crow parliament', a congreagation of crows - about 15-20 making a great fuss.

They must have been alerted to my prescence as it went deadly silent and then in a flurry of wings they all flew off. I expeted to find a carcass being torn apart where they had congregated but it was just a bare carpet of leaves.
 
I've recently become facinated by theses Crow Courts or "Parliaments of Fowls" - as I like to call them having a medieval bent :D.

I have come accross numerous stories... but never any images.

Are these courts a well documented phenomena? Do they have historial precedents (in folklore etc...?) I have access to the entire KM Briggs collection of folklore books at Leeds University, i'm planning a little session there to see if I can find anything.

Any help (especially images) would be appreciated.
 
I have seen bird courts in action as well; once it was a flock of crows setting upon another crow, and another time it involved starlings, jays, and a couple other species beating up on a flicker.

Sometimes the group is trying to drive away a very ill flockmate so that the ill bird won't attract predators. In the case of the crows, this was what was happening: I intervened, found that the crow on "trial" was too weak to fly, and took the poor old gent into my care. He was "the most geriatric corvid" my vet had ever seen; his heart was enlarged and one eye was infected. (An avian opthamologist with a wildlife specialization is not cheap, by the way.) The old guy had a good few months in my house before finally kicking off peacefully in his sleep.

In the case of the mixed flock, I don't know what the flicker's crime was. The flicker was not injured or sick (the whole group, flicker included, took off as I approached) and it was summer, so it wasn't a matter of competition over the bird feeder. To this day, I don't know!
 
I hear that flicker looked at somebody funny...

I once saw grackles mobbing a great egret at the nearest artificial lake. My best guess was that it had tried to vary its usual diet of small fish, amphibians, and bugs with a grackle fledgling. They'll talk big at cats, too, when a fledgling's trying to fly and the cat's too close, but I've never seen a cat attacked by the mob in that case. They're not nearly as brave as mockingbirds, which will dive-bomb a cat, or anything with catlike features, during nesting season. When I was a teen-ager in a ponytail, the mocker in our backyard used to come after me anytime I went into the backyard with my hair back, presumably because the ponytail reminded it of fluffy cat tails.
 
Quite often if it's a mixed bunch of birds, it'll be because a bird of prey is in the area. All the smaller birds tend to get a bit braver and will band together to mob the intruder.

Red-wing blackbirds in particular are amazingly aggressive when they're nesting; when one started attacking my father-in-law in a park, all the other birds in the area started squawking and closing in. Was very bizarre. Part of the problem was that a red-tailed hawk (pretty like a buzzard) had already landed in a tree close by.
 
I saw a bird court from the top deck of the bus going to work early one morning. It occured between Newcastle Upon Tyne and Prudhoe about 7.00 am about 3 years ago, on a grass verge near mature trees that boasted many birds nests. It was a large ring of big black birds, maybe Rooks or Crows, around two birds one a brown thrush type bird (Sorry not too good at bird identification) the other the same as the ones in the ring. When i first noticed them all of the birds where very still as if listening to the birds in the centre. suddenly with a flutter of wings the rook in the centre had the thrush on its back and was pecking it. The others in the circle continued to look on impassive and unmoving. This is as much of the scene as i saw as the bus past by.
I presume that the Thrush incroached on territory, nests or food.
I feel priviledged to have witnessed this.
 
I worked on an archaeological dig in County Sligo eight years ago. We were digging test trenches through a henge site, roughly half of which was to be on the route of a new road. One day in late October or early November, myself and a colleague were made aware of a great commotion coming from the untouched side of the henge. A large gathering of crows assembled on the ground in a circular pattern and were focused on two magpies in the centre. There appeared to be one crow leading proceedings and it reminded us of a court case. Eventually the magpies after some seven or eight minutes flew off in the direction of Sligo town, after maybe twenty seconds with a great cacophony the remaining crows pursued the magpies, but only so far and they soon returned and dispersed. What struck us most was the deliberate chance to escape that the crows gave the magpies who had been silent during the 'prosecution'. In all we saw roughly fifty crows in this parliament and we had a clear view from perhaps twenty metres away.
 
But enough about Leslie Joseph in Thoroughly Modern Millie.

I think I've just witnessed a Parliament of birds.

There's a dead for winter leafless tree just round the corner at the end of the road and the noise coming from it of cawing and squawking was deafening. As I got near and passed it I realised it was an actual Murder of Crows - dozens of the giant ghouls - hopping on and off the top branches of this tree, with the brooding sky in the background. I was thinking I'd hate to live in the house in front of it.....

When suddenly I noticed on the roof of the house, with this cacophany going on around it, was perched - in the middle of the city in the middle of the day - a huge fucking orange eyed owl,the kind that could probably snatch away a terrier for lunch, looking out on the world like an emperor. And just to complete the set and make me think I've walked into the Omen...perched, one each side, next to their satanic majesty like loyal lieutenants or hired thugs were 2 magpies!

When I came back that way 20 minutes later...complete silence...no cawing..the crows had vanished..the owl sat unmoved...and on the ground beneath the tree were now as many magpies as there had been crows earlier.

The anthropmorphic interpretation might be that the magpies may have taken the crows to court to get them evicted.
 
How positive are you that was a real owl, not one of those fake ones they put up to discourage rodents and nuisance birds (as if rodents and nuisance birds couldn't tell that the owl never moved and had no feathers that ruffled in the wind)?
 
Well the fact its ear/eye feathers were blowing in the breeze and it was turning its head to look around occassionally were a bit of a clue!
 
I suppose a more rational guess for the strange gathering would be that the owl had slaughtered some poor animal...perhaps even a nesting magpie.. and the scavenging crows had been attracted by the smell of death and buggered off when all the pickings had been picked.
 
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